


Sister Katherine

by orphan_account



Category: Cal Leandros - Thurman
Genre: Angels, Catholicism, Gen, Nuns, POV Original Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-18
Updated: 2009-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-04 14:21:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sister Katherine meets an angel-- or someone who looks like one, anyway. The scar isn't very angelic, but Sister Katherine is perfectly happy to have some faith.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sister Katherine

**Author's Note:**

> Please forgive me for using the logic behind the Hitchhiker's Guide's Babel Fish argument and applying it to angels.

Sister Katherine was a creature of purity and piety, in unequal measures. Numerous reasons found her more pure than pious-- purity, Katherine had always found, was an easy thing to maintain. Piety was a different matter.

Sister Katherine believed, and she believed fully, with her whole heart, in what she had dedicated her life to. The Church was her home and sanctuary, nothing more or less, and she felt no need nor want to abandon it. And yet for all of this comfort and ease, Sister Katherine found herself yet again with a problem.

There was an angel in the bell tower.

Angels, she said, were proof of God, and proof destroyed the simple beauty that was faith. This was why, she explained, she could not show him, the angel, to the rest of her convent, though they would surely take joy in seeing him. Compromising the pure and perfect faith of her convent was nothing she would willfully risk.

When she explained this to the angel, he had seemed relieved, but said nothing. On whole, he said very little. This was alright with Katherine. Simply being near him was enough.

Sister Katherine had found him after a horrible storm had shook the very walls of the convent. Lonely, frightened, and looking to conquer her fear, she had stepped up and onto the Church's highest height-- into the bell tower. Looking back, she did not know why the storm had frightened her so; from this angel, the rising sun surrounded by rain and wind and thunder had been coldly beautiful.

Much like the angel she had happened upon soon after. He was wearing the clothes of any gentleman walking on the streets of the nearest town, not the flowing robes of red and gold that the stained glass around them suggested.

Behind him, two golden-white wings, large and beautiful. One looked broken, and, when she had attempted to help him, she found that it was. He had hissed and cursed in a foreign tongue before, with a deliberately restrained voice, he had asked her not to touch his wings. His eyes, then, had not been as pure and peaceful, coldly beautiful, as they had been before. They had been cold and threatening, and Sister Katherine had noticed the scar jutting across his cheek. She had thought, then, maybe he was Michael, and he had gained that scar fighting Lucifer's armies.

She had not said that, then, of course, for it would have been rude.

Instead, she rushed down to the supply room, kept stocked for the stray vagabond and poor needing of supplies, rushing to gift the angel with a blanket and bandages. She had watched him set his wing, all the time asking if she could help.

He had told her, No.

She fell silent after the fifth or sixth rebuke.

The next day, she had brought him bread, milk, and cheese from the kitchens downstairs. She had thought of providing an apple from her apple tree in the gardens, but she decided not to, thinking it too much an act of pride. Only later had she realized the other possible ill in the idea of giving an angel an apple.

What if he had been the one guarding the garden?

That was when Sister Katherine realized she did not know this angel's name. At lunch, she brought him soup from the kitchens and asked him.

He had been disinclined to answer.

Katherine had always been a stubborn girl, and, now in her adult life, she retained this trait; much to her own distaste, but more often than not, her use. "Are you Michael?" She had asked.

"No," He had answered.

"Raphael?"

His answer had been the same. Several names later-- even detailing angels that the church did not officially recognize-- she had not given up so much as tired of this game and retreated back to her apple tree, pretending the angel was a more handsome Quasimodo, and she, a more virtuous Esmeralda. These daydreams were foolish, she knew, Katherine indulged anyway.

At dinner, when Katherine had brought him fish, milk and bread and in return her angel had said, without any precursor, "Ishiah." At first Katherine had thought it was another word in that foreign tongue he had spilled earlier, but when he did not say anything else, she repeated it.

"Ishiah?"

"That is my name."

Katherine was wholly unsuccessful in the act of hiding her smile. She elected to eat dinner with the angel-- Ishiah. When he did not ask her to leave, she started on her portion of the bread. They ate in silence.

Over the month the angel stayed in the bell tower, she asked him many questions.

"Why does an angel need to eat, Sir Ishiah?"

Ishiah had asked not to be called 'sir'. No title was necessary, for he possessed none. Also, he had said, he was not an angel.

Katherine was understandably skeptical. "If you're not an angel, what are you?"

Ishiah had said, A peri.

"And what's the difference between an angel and a peri?"

Ishiah had been disinclined to answer.

The rest of the food was eaten in silence, Katherine embarrassed in a way she could not explain. When the meal was finished, she apologized quickly and fled to the safety of her room. They did not speak again for three says, until, quietly, he had asked for a branch of Katherine's apple tree, if she could manage it, and a pot full of dirt.

In a week, he had the beginnings of an apple tree. Privately, Katherine found this to be the truest proof: Ishiah was an angel. He felt moved to spread God's gift of life and growth to the world, wherever he went.

Sister Katherine had later asked, "Are you a fallen angel?"

Ishiah had not answered, and his face had gone dark. Katherine had said nothing, and later that night, had begun a ritual that would follow her all through her life: she prayed for Ishiah's reentry into Heaven.

When it had been four weeks, Katherine found Ishiah opening a window, the dressings for his sling lying on the floor. Katherine though her sadness at her angel leaving her was almost as much a sin as calling an angel _hers_.

"How did you break your wing?" She asked.

He said, I was in a fight. I was protecting someone.

Katherine asked if he had won the fight, if Ishiah had succeeded in protecting that someone. Sister Katherine asked if Ishiah had been fighting The Devil.

"I was fighting a Mesopotamian storm demon, and yes, I won." Ishiah answered.

"Where is the person you were protecting?" Katherine was not surprised by the prospect of Ishiah fighting some sort of demon. She had seen his hands, callused from holding some great weapon. She had seen stand glass that filled in the rest of the pictures in her mind. All together, it was a mural-- Ishiah's victories were many, even if his words were few.

"He ran." And then, if Katherine did not know better, she would have said Ishiah's tone was spiteful, "He's very good at running." Spiteful and hurt.

Katherine just nodded, not wanting to pry. "Thank you for allowing me to eat with you, when you did. I'm sorry I was not a better hostess."

For a moment, Ishiah looked almost confused. "You were a fine hostess. Thank you for... having me, and feeding me."

Katherine thought how stupid it would be to cry, now, "Will I ever see you again?"

Spreading his wings, Ishiah replied in his terse manner that Katherine would miss in the coming months, "No." And then, maybe seeing her distress, he added, "You don't need me."

And he flew.


End file.
